A Reassurance-Based Approach to Space Security - Center for ...

The Logic of a Reassurance-based RegimeAs we have seen, the OST and other early rules for space security were developed tohelp stabilize terrestrial deterrence by providing two types of space reassurance: reassurancebetween the superpowers that they would tolerate each other’s use of space forreconnaissance and other “stabilizing” military support activities and would forego highlydestabilizing forms of space competition; and reassurance to other countries that the mostadvanced space-faring states would not try to lock out less developed countries from spacebut would share the benefits and show due regard for others’ current and future spaceinterests. In recent years, the United States has veered from this course and tried to establisha two-tiered set of rules for space security in which it, as the world’s sole superpower,claimed almost complete freedom to use space for maximum national military and economicadvantage, and could decide which other countries’ uses of space were to be tolerated andwhich needed to be controlled, negated, or denied. This conception of comprehensive U.S.military space dominance has proven to be technically and economically unfeasible, as wellas politically unacceptable to all other countries with space ambitions. But it remains anopen question going forward whether a more appropriate guiding principle for space securitywould be an updated and strengthened form of reassurance or an extension of deterrencefrom terrestrial conflict into the space environment.Some analysts, such as Bruce MacDonald and a group organized by the U.S. AirForce Academy’s Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies, have proposed thatdeterrence should become the central principle for space security policy. 34 At first glance, itwould seem logical to extend terrestrial deterrence into space given that the United Statescan no more stop other countries from acquiring advanced military space capabilities orrender its own space assets invulnerable than it can preserve its nuclear monopoly orphysically prevent a nuclear attack. Anyone who credits deterrence with preventing asuperpower conflict during the Cold War has reason to hope that an adapted form ofdeterrence could prevent attacks in space, too. Certainly, space deterrence would betechnically more feasible and politically more acceptable than comprehensive U.S. spacedominance has proved to be. Yet, there are a number of reasons why deterrence should notbe enshrined as the new principle to guide space security policies, acquisition programs, andinteractions among space-faring states. 35The central problem with nuclear deterrence holds true with space deterrence, too.How does a country convince a potential adversary that it has sufficient invulnerable militarycapabilities (in space or in other environments) to ensure that any benefits that the potentialadversary might expect to gain by attacking would be outweighed by the costs of theresponse, without the first country building up its offensive capabilities to the point wherethey make the relationship more adversarial than it already is, provoke a pre-emptiveresponse, cause another type of inadvertent deterrence failure, or generate a wasteful arms34 Roger G. Harrison, Deron R. Jackson, and Collins G. Shackelford, “Space Deterrence — the DelicateBalance of Risk,” in Space and Defense (forthcoming).35 McDonald and the Eisenhower Center group are making recommendations for U.S. space policy; they donot consider the consequences for the U.S. or the rest of the global space community if other countries alsoreorient their policies to emphasize space deterrence.23